Enquiry into Abandoned calls by Homeserve and Npower

Two companies are facing investigations by the Communications Regulator for making abandoned calls.

Energy company Npower and the home Maintenance company, Homeserve have between them 9m customers, have received accusations of ‘persistent misuse’ of their communication equipment by Ofgem.

These occurrences happen when the companies dial several numbers at the same time but then do not have a staff member ready to speak when the call is answered.

The two companies claim that these cases were very infrequent occurrences.

What usually happens is call centres use automated equipment for dialling, this equipment is designed to make dozens of calls at the same time, Ofgem has received thousands of complaints from customers who receive abandoned or silent calls when staff is not available.

When call centres use automatic dialling equipment in order to contact a large number of people, the call is answered at the same time the recipient is then connected to an operator.

However, there are occasions when there are not enough staff to connect the call to and the person receiving the call finds there is no one on the line.

A silent call leaves a person with no one to speak to, but an abandoned call will play a recorded message.

There are no plans to ban automated systems, but Ofgem has issued a warning to the two companies that they must ‘employ such practices more carefully’.

The maximum fine for regular infringement of this was raised to £2m in February.

Although the use of automated systems will not be banned, companies have been told by Ofgem to employ such practices more carefully.

In February, the max fine for regularly breaking these rules with regards to silent or having abandoned calls was increased to £2m.

Ofgem has said it has reason to believe that Npower and Homeserve had broken the rules.

During the period of 1st February and 21st March, it came to Ofgem’s attention that both companies had misused electronic communications or services persistently. Ofgem has suggested that Homeserve had repeatedly called people over a 24 hour period with no staff available to connect to and that Npower had played pre-recorded marketing messages when no one from the call center was connected.

The two companies have until 10th August to answer to Ofgem and state their case.

Homeserve had admitted to the BBC that there was a period that they had been in breach of the regulation, and that their own internal audit process, the company said they had remediated the situation immediately and that their systems were now fully compliant.

Npower stated that their abandoned call rate was below the 3% laid out by Ofgem. They also stated that their concern related to a few random individual days that they had exceeded the limit. In September 2008, Barclaycard had received the highest penalty of £50.000 that is allowed under the old rules.